Paul Morris·

Is Best Buy Ripping Off Customers By Charging $100 Extra For iPhone X?

Apple’s initial inventory of iPhone X sold out within minutes if ordering through the company’s website or Apple Store app for iPhone and iPad, but as you may know, that wasn’t the only place you could acquire that hardware on pre-order.

Best Buy, like many retailers, is also allowing customers to pre-order an iPhone X ahead of its official release date, but rather bizarrely is charging $100.00 premium for that privilege. And, perhaps even more bizarrely, has issued a rather confusing statement to try and justify the additional 10% levy.

Anyone who managed to purchase iPhone X from Apple as part of the pre-order madness would have been able to collect the base model 64GB version for $999.00 or upgrade to the larger 256GB variant for $1,149.00. Those were the official prices as announced by Apple, both when the company took to the stage on September 12 and on the website, as well as all the marketing material. However, for one reason or another, anyone purchasing a device through Best Buy’s online system during the pre-order rush needed to part with $1,099.00 for the 64GB version or $1,249.00 for the larger 256GB option. In fact as of this writing, Best Buy is still charging $100 more than Apple and other carriers and retailers. So why the $100.00 increase in cost?

Best Buy says this is to allow the company to offer flexibility to consumers and to allow them to the phone they want from Best Buy:

Our prices reflect the fact that no matter a customer’s desired plan or carrier, or whether a customer is on a business or personal plan, they are able to get a phone the way they want at Best Buy. Our customers have told us they want this flexibility and sometimes that has a cost.

This could possibly have some basis in common sense if customers didn’t seem to have the exact same flexibility with a purchase through Apple. Apple allows a customer purchasing iPhone X to choose a carrier and plan, which is the same situation as found on the Best Buy website, so we can’t really work out where the additional flexibility comes in, or, indeed if Best Buy is simply trying to suggest that customers have informed them that they are happy to pump an additional $100 into the company’s coffers. For what it’s worth, the company also charges an additional $100 for iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus so at least the company is consistent, but we wouldn’t recommend getting iPhone X from them. You are better off getting it directly from Apple, or any other retailer selling it on official price.

If you haven’t gotten your pre-order in, it’s important to note that Apple will have some units in stock for walk-in customers at its retail stores come November 3 launch day.

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